Included in the $2.1 million in travel options grants awarded by Metro is $458,000 to help kids around the region walk and bike to school safely.
On Monday, Feb. 23, Metro announced 18 projects from around the region that will receive a total of $2.1 million in grants to make it easier for people to walk, bike, take transit or carpool.
Learn more about travel options grants
The grantees for the travel options program's 2015-2017 cycle, listed alphabetically, are as follows:
Beaverton School District, Safe Routes to School Program: $158,000
The Beaverton School District will reignite its Safe Routes to School program by hiring a program coordinator to provide leadership and expanded program offerings. The program provides school-appropriate programs and training to help communities and students reduce reliance on private auto travel and help them find and choose non-drive alone options. This program will also help reduce reliance on busing students to these schools, and ensure more young people feel comfortable walking and biking at an early age using the "6E approach": Encouragement, Education, Enforcement, Equity, Evaluation and Engineering. These skills and knowledge of the benefits of using a variety of travel options will follow students into adulthood.
Bicycle Transportation Alliance, Expanding Access to Bicycling: $155,040
The Bicycle Transportation Alliance seeks to support the region’s health, equity, and Climate Smart Strategy goals by building on its successful Bike Commute Challenge program to deliver positive bicycling experiences to a diversity of regoinal residents with the goal of expanding personal options to access work, school and neighborhood destinations by bike. The project has three key components: the Bike Commute Challenge, geographically‐focused community engagement in East Portland and Washington County and a new woman‐focused bicycling initiative.
City of Gresham, Gresham Sharrows: $63,260
In a short period of time Gresham has made great strides in its bicycling network. However, the city recognizes many opportunities for improvement, including providing enhanced shared route bicycling infrastructure that uses local roads, and not arterials. This type of greenway access promotes safe and efficient bicycling to a broad spectrum of the population. This project will plan, design and install two sharrow bikeway corridors in Gresham’s Rockwood Neighborhood. The corridors run parallel with each other on SE Yamhill and SE Main Street between the Ruby Junction MAX Station and the Gresham/Portland city limits.
City of Lake Oswego, Active Transportation Counters: $14,000
Lake Oswego looks to strategically increase active transportation options, prioritize maintenance and restoration projects and make more efficient use of staff and volunteer time through a system of permanent and mobile pedestrian and bicycle counting devices. As a jurisdiction whose residents want to "age in place" and reduce auto congestion, offering travel options is paramount. Lake Oswego intends to use the data to assist in prioritizing construction projects in its annual review of municipal projects; coordinate with agency partners on regional trail planning; and increase local and regional support for implementing infrastructure projects.
City of Tigard, Safe Routes to School Coordinator: $150,000
Tigard is not unusual in having schools near arterials and collectors that are difficult to cross, and local streets around schools with inadequate sidewalks, signage, pedestrian and bicycle safety devices, or bike parking. Initiating a Safe Routes to School program acknowledges the work that needs to be done and makes a commitment to do it. This project will fund a full-time Safe Routes to School coordinator position in Tigard. The coordinator will be the hub of citywide and Tigard-Tualatin School District efforts to promote walking and bicycling for school and other trips. By working directly with individual schools, Tigard SRTS will reinforce the city’s commitment to being "the most walkable community in the Pacific Northwest, where people of all ages and abilities enjoy healthy and interconnected lives."
Clackamas Community College, Student Transportation Initiative: $85,018
Currently, 70 percent of Clackamas Community College students and more than 85 percent of faculty and staff drive alone to get to any of the colleges three campuses in Oregon City, Wilsonville, and Harmony Road. The college has been actively seeking a reduction in students and staff drive-alone trips through its combined transportation efforts, but has no one who is actively involved in promoting alternatives or managing and enhancing our shuttle program, or gathering and analyzing data on transportation options. The goal of this position is to normalize student and staff transit mode awareness and encourage alternatives to driving alone.
Gresham Chamber of Commerce, East Multnomah County Bicycle Tourism Initiative: $50,000
East Multnomah County’s capacity to attract and support the use of bicycles for transportation and recreation has been growing. While the groundwork has been laid, there is still much work to be done to leverage the investments that showcase East Multnomah County as a prime bicycle-oriented destination. This initiative will provide safe and convenient bike parking, marketing and education, engagement with local businesses and events, which will attract local and regional visitors, boost the economy and increase use of bicycling for transportation for local and regional trips.
Housing Authority of Washington County, Aloha Park Bike Shelters: $15,000
Aloha Park is an 80-unit multifamily affordable housing property located on SW 185th Avenue in Aloha. The property serves family households earning 80 percent or less of area median income. This project will remove existing inadequate bike parking and install secure, covered bike parking in three locations on the property. Secure bike parking facilities will reduce barriers to bicycle use for the households residing in this development, potentially increasing bicycle use for adult residents and provide support for the development of biking skills and regular bike use for younger residents.
National Safe Routes to School Alliance, Regional Safe Routes to School Planning: $25,000
Communities in the region are coming together around the need for safer and more accessible infrastructure serving schools, as well as education and encouragement programs that promote walking, bicycling, transit use and carpooling for the school commute. This grant supports the work needed to complete a Regional Safe Routes to School Framework Plan. The plan will establish a regional snapshot of the needs of all schools in the urbanized portions of Clackamas, Washington and Multnomah Counties. Through analysis as well as the establishment of a Regional Safe Routes to School Task Force, the plan will lay the groundwork for a successful Regional Safe Routes to School Program. The plan will expand on existing strategies and tactics of related investments by filling in missing data on how students in the region travel to and from school, and initiate a new strategy to link school travel to nearby investments.
Portland Bureau of Transportation, Active Portland: Open Streets, Connected Communities: $465,000
Over the past decade, PBOT's transportation demand management programs have reached every corner of the city several times over. The current challenge is to provide underserved communities and new residents the same opportunities to engage in active transportation as more established Portland residents. Active Portland builds upon successes by utilizing the framework from the past and adopting the program to the needs of Portland today.
Active Portland brings together the transportation demand management expertise of PBOT and the community organizing expertise of the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO), Community Cycling Center, Oregon Walks and AARP Oregon to reach thousands of residents of the Portland area in new and engaging ways. The project employs these partnerships in three key focus areas: the Jade District, centered at SE 82nd Ave and Division Streets, the New Columbia neighborhood in North Portland and the Hacienda community in the Cully neighborhood of Northeast Portland. Active Portland will successfully help thousands of people incorporate walking, bicycling and transit into their daily lives. The project will also help underserved residents lay the foundation for healthy communities by using walking, bicycling, and transit as a springboard to greater civic engagement around important neighborhood transportation issues.
Portland Community College, Transportation Demand Management Coordinator and Bicycle Improvements: $156,822
Like most urban colleges, Portland Community College faces significant challenges when it comes to transportation, parking and accommodations for the various ways that students, staff and faculty commute. Decreasing the number of individuals who commute by driving alone can relieve the parking congestion and provide environmental, health, and economic benefits to the diverse students, faculty and staff who commute to PCC. The project creates a college-level Active Transportation Coordinator to perform outreach to students and staff, promote options to decrease driving alone and serve as a liaison to student groups, PCC’s Transportation and Parking Services, Facilities and Maintenance, Public Safety, and community partners. The project also improves security for bike commuters by enabling PCC to purchase 24 additional lockers with space for 48 bikes.
Portland Public Schools, Healthy Travel Options to School: $125,000
The Healthy Travel Options to School Action Plan will close infrastructure equity gaps, overcome cultural barriers to walking or biking to school, reduce school site vehicle trip generation and increase safety within the Portland Public Schools student active transportation network. The project will provide planned support to overcome infrastructure equity gaps that directly impact the livelihood of historically underserved students and their families.
Ride Connection, RideWise Urban Mobility Support and Training: $222,233
The RideWise Travel Training & Mobility Support program helps older adults, people with disabilities and low-income individuals who would otherwise travel by private automobile or ADA paratransit access and independently navigate existing regional investments in public transit. These reductions in on-demand rides provide $1.37 million in cost savings annually to TriMet. Participants receive information, support and training related to the least restrictive mode of transport available to them based on factors such as ability level, mobility goals, proximity to transit and path of travel examination.
Verde, Living Cully Walks, Phase 2: $102,127
Increasingly, a Portland neighborhood is defined by its environmental assets: parks, habitat, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, carbon action, stormwater management. Living Cully: A Cully Ecodistrict is a long-term, community-based and collaborative strategy to address multiple disparities in health, income, education, community engagement and natural resources. By concentrating environmental investments at the neighborhood scale and braiding those investments with traditional community development resources, Living Cully helps children and families overcome barriers to travel options in their neighborhood.
Washington County, Washington County Travel Options Planning: $50,000
Transportation demand management, or TDM, has been used in Washington County for many years, responding to regional and state mandates. Yet a countywide plan to coordinate TDM planning, programs and operations has not yet been adopted or implemented. This project will provide a framework for developing and integrating TDM strategies into planning, project development and investment decision making. With congestion continuing to increase and limited funding to expand roadway and transit capacity, there is a growing need to develop consensus on how to better coordinate TDM programs, and set a countywide vision for an expanded TDM system.
Washington Park Transportation Management Association, Transit to Trails Wayfinding: $10,000
During the summer of 2014, the Washington Park Transportation Management Association hired field staff to provide travel information to visitors inside Washington Park. The top question the staff received from visitors getting off at the TriMet Plaza was how to access the Rose Garden. Many of these people wanted to hike the two miles to the garden in order to enjoy Hoyt Arboretum. Despite providing trail maps, people complained about getting lost on their way to the garden, stating the wayfinding signage was poor. This project will install trail signage directing people from the Washington Park MAX station to the other end of the park to access the Japanese Garden and Rose Garden.
West Columbia Gorge Chamber of Commerce, Gorge Hubs and Business Outreach $50,000
Tourism is a major economic development contributor to the small Columbia River communities that lie along the western entry to the Columbia River Gorge. Tourist traffic from downtown Portland, Portland International Airport and Gresham funnels through this area and into the Gorge, in a quest to enjoy the numerous recreational experiences and sightseeing options offered by the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. This project addresses two different but interrelated needs: it enhances traveler amenities for area cyclists and pedestrians, including both tourists and local residents, through an Oregon Department of Transportation-sponsored program called the “Gorge Hubs” project; and it provides alternative transportation options to regional employers and their employees through a “final-mile” transportation analysis.
Westside Transportation Alliance, Westside Transportation Demand Management: $203,500
Westside Transportation Alliance is the transportation management association serving Washington County. The organization works directly with employers and employees to enhance economic opportunity, improve health, and foster a livable community via transportation options. Through business services, an Open Bike Initiative pilot and a bike parking program WTA will increase awareness of travel options and reduce single‐occupant vehicle commuting, resulting in environmental, social and economic benefits that help meet regional goals.
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